Towards the Era of Systematic Reviews in Education: Promoting Evidence-Informed Decisions in the Global South

This paper aims to propose systematic reviews as a viable solution to bridge the gap between research and policy/practice in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It also presents the current trend and scope of systematic reviews across the globe. In this, two approaches were used to develop the arguments. The first part is theoretical to take forward the longstanding debate about the gap between research and policy/practice. The second part used a systematic approach to search databases for existing published articles on systematic reviews to find the trend and scope. The results revealed a consistent upward trend in the publications of systematic reviews at the global level with an overwhelming majority of systematic reviews coming from high-income countries. Encouragingly, systematic reviews are gaining momentum in LMICs, though there is still scarcity. Furthermore, the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has led to a significant increase in the publication of systematic reviews, especially in education technology and teaching learning.